Users of the World Wide Web and other packet-based networks frequently engage in communications and entertainment activities that require the establishment of one-way or two-way media streaming connections between a terminal device (such as a personal computer) and a server or telecommunications device (such as a telephone, media gateway, private branch exchange, or media server). For example, the assignee of the present invention, eStara Inc., provides Internet-telephony services to connect web site users and e-mail users to commercial call centers by enabling their personal computers to behave as speakerphones and establishing voice-over-Internet connections through the public switched telephone network.
Many users who desire media streaming services connect through networks that utilize firewalls and proxy servers for information security. Firewalls frequently block media streaming protocols (e.g., the Universal Datagram Protocol-UDP) while supporting web protocols (e.g., the HyperText Transfer Protocol-HTTP). Proxy servers complement firewalls by facilitating connections for authorized purposes while shielding personal computers and other devices from a direct connection to the public Internet.
Users who desire access to media streaming applications may be prevented from using these applications by the need to determine a variety of network browser security configuration settings and to modify these settings to permit media streaming connections. What is needed is an apparatus and a method for a network-based or computer-based application to determine firewall and proxy server configuration settings and negotiate an appropriate connection with the end user's computing device and/or a proxy server automatically.